January 02, 2008

Risk of Domestic "Sudden Jihad Syndrome"

Since the war on terror, al-Qaeda has taken a lot of damage. This results in what we call al-Qaeda 3.0. Small independent cells of sympathetic Islamic radicals willing to carry out what they believe are al-Qaeda central's wishes. Many of the kidnappings of journalists in Palestine last year are examples of this type of activity.

Via Washington Times: Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced "sudden jihad syndrome" in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., a law-enforcement intelligence analysis says.

The Dec. 6 report by the Texas Public Safety Department's Bureau of Information Analysis warns officials not to dismiss individual or homegrown terror cells as "wannabes," saying they pose a credible threat to homeland security.

"Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism," said the report, which was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement in Texas. "As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism."

It said they might act with the intention of eventually joining al Qaeda or the jihad movement overseas.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, cited al Qaeda theorist Abu Mu'ab al Suri's book "Call to Global Islamic Resistance," in which Mu'ab al Suri noted that the future of al Qaeda terrorist fighters will depend on individual and small-group terrorists.

As Rusty points out most fo these people are, "morons", we have been lucky and several such plots have been discovered and thwarted. As al-Qaeda continues to lose ground, the pressure on these small cells to try and hide al-Qaeda's impotence increases. As the recent bombings in Iraq have shown, the last dying gasp of a failed terrorists ideology can be deadly.